So far, so good. the disagreement comes at this point. Personal preference. I like the W.I.L.D.Cats and am not terribly concerned if it is an X-Men ripoff as it is better than X-Men has been in some time. The artwork (especially when Jim Lee was on board) is in two words, good stuff. Call me a braind dead poster art junkie, but there you go. I like Lee's Fantastic Four. The stories are admittedly average to pretty good, but the artwork is worth the price of admission. My message to the comics publishing world is this - get Jim Leet to draw more books. In my opinion a Jim Lee penciled book is a quality book.

I love certain characters. I love Spider-man. I love Batman. I am currently buying no Spider-man titles and only one Batman title (the Halloween maxi-series). Quality counts, but I don't believe that quality lives at DC, Marvel or Image. Quality is a commodity that I find identifies itself with particular creators. I will agree with Moudry's assessment of Rob Liefeld's work. I am not impressed by giant musclebound characters with tiny pinheads all looking very much the same, doing very boring things. However, I obviously agree when it comes to Lee. I will buy a book based on certain names. Byrne, David, Waid, Lee, Miller...you get the idea.

I too am a huge fan of a good story. I think Peter David, Mark Waid and above all John Byrne have the most solid understanding of how to tell a comic book story of anybody working today. Too be clear, I don't think John Byrne is the best writer or the best artist, but the best comic book storyteller. He has the clearest idea of how to best utilize the medium to tell the story he wants to tell. I will buy what these folks produce for the most part, secure in the knowledge that I can depend on their skills to deliver quality product. However, if somebody wants to be thrilled with Liefeld's Captain America, go for it. There is plenty of room on the shelf for comics to suit folks of all tastes and dispositions. If people want to buy bad comics they certainly have that right. Hot comes and goes, but quality endures. Liefeld will (I trust) one day fade into the background and the real talents will continue to shine. Enjoy the comic of your choice and send your message, not by being overly concerned with 300,000 Captain America's in print (God knows how many Team America's there are floating around out there, seem like I've seen 300,000 of those myself at various shows), but by buying what you like , what you feel is of worthy quality.

Unfortunately quality will never be the only standard by which a comic book or anything else is judged. No one is well served by buying sixteen copies of the same book because it has sixteen variant covers. However, it is not the job of the comic book company to curb this particular problem, it is the job of the fan. If I could sell the same book one time or sixteen times based on how many covers I put on it, I'd put twenty or thirty covers on it, just to see how many people would buy the thing. These companies are not nurturing the tastes of comics fans, they are producing product. Some of it is good, some of it is really pathetically awful, but occasionally the pathetically awful, for no apparent reason is going to become wildly popular. Sometimes there is a moment in time which witnesses the intersection of the artistically sublime and the commercially successful. In the music world Bruce Springsteen's Born In The U.S.A., in the comics world, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Too often however it seems to be the New Kids On The Block and the Rob Liefelds who garner all the attention.

I do believe we could stand to examine why we buy certain titles. I once bought a bucketload of comics a month. I am now buying about thirteen titles. And neat thing is I look at my stack of comics and I want to read them. I don't look at them and think, what is up with Chris Claremont and this Sovereign Seven mess. We all have to come to that moment when we look in the mirror and wonder why we need to buy every issue of the crossover to end all crossovers until next months version of same, but until we come to that on our own, each in our moment of insight and understanding, live and let live. Buy what you believe to be good, high quality stuff and let the Image fans have their fun.